Decisive Campaigns: The Blitzkrieg from Warsaw to Paris Full Campaign AAR

Keunert vs. Lowlander

Victory Conditions This is a campaign game. I'll have to hold Warsaw until turn 12, September the 23rd. I will try to hold my troop exit points at Grodno and Lwow. Those will provide Polish divisions during Case Yellow. Another goal is to inflict more then 10% losses on the german troops. This will result in a production point penalty in Case Yellow.

General considerations: After our ill conceived attack on german Grenzwachtposten, Hitler started his active defense. Most of our troops made contact with the ennemy. The Polish setup is a problematic one. Two of the Operational Groups, Pomorze and Poznan, are in danger to be cut off by fast moving Panzers of Guderian and Hoepner. Cut off troops will soon be immobile and suffer severe combat penalties. It is decided to move both operational groups back and establish contact with adjacent groups.

The German army is superior in all fields. There are some polish tank and aircraft designs that match the german counterparts. But those designs haven't been ordered in sufficient numbers. On a sunny day the Luftwaffe will kill around half a polish infantry division a turn. My best weapons against Milch's planes and Guderian's tanks is terrain and digging in. This means we will have to run in open terrain and hold as long as possible behind rivers, in cities and in woods.

The Polish airforce will be used for recon missions and will attack german tanks. It will seldom occur that we actually kill one, but we may lower readiness and cohesion and that will lower the unit's mobility.

Lagebericht 1. September

Group Narew: Not much happening here. We decide to pull back troops behind rivers where the wil dig in. One division from the general reserve is ordered to move up to Grodno, just in case the germany tries to capture our exit point.

Group Modlin: We will try to hold our fortified positions for as long as possible and then slowly fall back in good order.

Group Pomorze / Poznan: 27th Inf. Div. and some cavalry brigades are boarding trains and move further south. Group Poznan is taking positions behind river Warta. One division is moving north to establish contact with Pomorze.

Group Lodz: Commander Juliusz Rómmel issued a no step back order. This brilliant move will make sure we will lose all forward units. Four divisions from the General Reserve are ordered to move to the Warta.

Group Cracaw: With bleeding hearts we decided to give up Cracaw and fall back east. We will establish a continous front connecting Group Lodz and Group Carpathian. Most units of the Carpathian Group fall back east, except one blocking two german division. Sitting in urban terrain it will hold out some time and buy us time.

Group Narew: Still no contact with the Krauts. We sent one air unit north to do some recon flights. Much to Edward Rydz-Śmigły surprise the Lotzen Grenzwacht Division is sitting peacefully outside Lotzen, enjoying summer. We decide to let them enjoy summer and send Group Narews 35th Inf Div back. They will be needed against Army Group North's third army.

Group Modlin: Panzer Division Kempf moved one Panzer and one Panzer Grenadier regiment between our troops. Both regiments sit in a swamp hex behind a river: they won't get a lot of supply there. The question arises if we should try to encircle them. We decide not to go for it as we would have to send troops that would have to abandon well dug and fortified positions.

Group Pomorze / Poznan: Group Pomorze has successfully evacuated all troops north of Bydgeszcz. Guderian faces now a defensive line reinforced by one division and two cavalry regiments. This will hopefully slow Guderian. Poznan will be defended by an emergency unit and two cavalry units. One division turned north, one goes east.

Group Lodz: Commander Juliusz Rómmel might get lucky. German armor wasn't as fast as we thought and an escape is still possible. Only one regiment is encircled and doomed.

Group Cracaw / Carpathian: A continous defensive line in favourable terrain is build and all units are ordered to dig in. Group Carpathian disengages from the germans but holds without losses against the slovak division.

Polish losses are moderate so far. Well we are running fast... But as we had time to dig in on several fronts we expect the next turn to be bloody for both sides. An emergency regiment has been created. Those come in handy and we hope to see a lot more of them. They are not very combat effective. But if placed in the right spots they still are able to do harm.

Group Narew: Nothing new here. The Krauts are lazy. 35th Inf Div continues to move west.

Group Modlin: The forts are under constant shelling and the Luftwaffe is very active here. But so far we take only very few losses.

Group Pomorze / Poznan: Nothing new in the west. German Panzers slowly drive south and german infantry slowly advances to Poznan.

Group Lodz: Commander Juliusz Rómmel released his 'Stalingrad' order. The Wehrmacht again failed at creating a pocket. We still hope to get most units out.

Group Cracaw / Carpathian: Undefended Katowice surrendered to Germany. The advance to Cracaw is slow. Maybe Lowlander moved most units north towards Lodz / Warsaw. The Carpathian Group is taking losses and will disengage this turn.

It appears your opponent is not being aggressive enough. He should right with you as you retreat.

You need to be careful not to retreat too far too fast or you'll just give your enemy more time to beat his way through to Warsaw.

Also you only need to keep one of the retreat paths open not both. I usually try to keep the Southern pass open and use the northern troops to attack into East Prussia. This will rattle the German, if his not very experienced, and draw troops away from the drive to Warsaw. You don't need to attack him directly up there just drive troops around his like your going for breakthroughs. Only attack when you have lots of troops and 3+ sides to attack from.

When you blow bridges, and you should be blowing them all, try to leave a unit on your side of the bridge. Most of the time it will force an extra turn as he has to move your unit before he can fix the bridge. These are speed bumps... very annoying for the Germans. Speed bumps are also good at major intersections of rail/roads.

_____________________________

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out & proclaiming "WOW, what a ride!"

The photographer was asleep, so no pictures this turn. as expected losses mounted on both sides. no major breakthroughs occured. We started an operation that will most likely give OKW something to think about. Stay tuned for the next turns, there's a polish offensive in development.

Barthheart: you are probably right about the going back too fast in the northern part. but i think with Pomorze it makes sense to pull back the units south of Danzig: the german player could leave them die and bypass them. i've read no aar with that low losses on the polish side and that few units encircled. maybe it's Lowlanders fault. i basically use a variant of Rocketman's strategy.

the game is currently at turn 7 and i think you'll like whats going to happen.

Two more emergency regiments are available this turn. So far the creation of those units combined with the 5 regiments i bought paying political points make up for most of the losses. Even though we suffered 11%, Polish manpower is almost on the same level as in turn one. German losses are extremely high, a 2:1 loss ratio is a very good result.

Nordpolen: After long discussions between Brig. Gen. Emil de Krukowicz-Przedrzymirski, Group Modlin and Lt. Gen. Władysław Bortnowski of Group Pomorze with Comander in Chief Edward Rydz-Śmigły it was decided to counter attack the german 3rd army.

After intense air recon following operation was put in action: Three fresh divisions of group Narev are ordered to attack Corps Wodrig and move in direction Ortelsburg. In the far north a cavalry brigade supported by two emergency regiments will bypass lazy Lotzen Grenzschlafcorps and threaten Königsberg. This will prevent the Grenzwacht to support Corps Wodrig. One fresh division of Group Modlin will bypass germany's third army in the west, tying down 1 Corps, including Panzerdivision Kempf.

The fighting started with a successfull assault on two german cavalry regiments, throwing them back. One engineer unit made it just two hexes short of Ortelsburg.

Goal of the offensive: by threatening to cut off supply lines we hope to force germany's third army to turn around and clear the threat in their back. This will cost them time while the defenders north of Warsaw will gain some days to properly dig in. We will pay attention that our pincers won't put themself into risk of being cut off. Depending on the german reaction they will fall back.

Westpolen: Group Pomorze / Poznan disengage and fall two hexes back. One continuing frontline is created, mostly two hexes deep. The falling back will get faster as we begin to enter Panzercountry.

Südpolen: Group Lodz: Commander Juliusz Rómmel again issued a no step back order. This time it's not as bad as most units are dug in behind the Warta. It still is a major annoyance, as some units should have moved back and will most likely not see the next turn. Group Cracaw is still digging, no contact with the ennemy. Group Carpathian disengaged.

Tension was rising at the polish army HQ. How would the superior German forces react? Would they turn the counterattack into a huge fiasco, a second Tannenberg? If so, how could the northern approach to Warsaw be defended?

The first reports coming in were the loss reports from the army groups. Polands losses rose to 13%, Germany rose to 6%. Two more emergency regiments were delievered to the troops.

Finally the new map sketches arrived: studying them, Comander in Chief Edward Rydz-Śmigły began to relax: no visible German reaction!

Grenzwacht Division Lotzen was slowly moving west but would be blocked by Narew. In the west German 10th Panzerdivision, assisted by 21th Inf Div were crossing the river Drweca. But those movements would most likely have happened without our attack.

But I Corps and Corps Wodrig of 3rd army remained where the have been. Corps I moved a bit closer to Wodrig and made one unsucsessfull attack. But they did not take care of their supply lines.

Nordpolen: The German inability may be due to their underestimating of the Polish forces. Whatever the reasons are, we decide to continue to push forward. Two successfull attacks pushed back 4 regiments of Corps Wodrig. 35th Inf Div assisted by a cavalry corps continue the encirclement. North of Lotzen the push towards Königsberg goes on unmet.

Südpolen: Group Lodz: Commander Juliusz Rómmel ordered two divisions to dig in Lodz and Piotrkow. On the southern boarders it is decided to probe the Slovaks as it looks like they lost contact to the Germans. The situation at the end of turn 6:

The losses are still very agreeable: 15% of our troops vs. 7% German troops. With the attack on many major cities still to start the German will most likely end with much more than 10% losses, resulting in a drop of production points for case yellow. This will make it harder for them to use Para's or to bring in one more mechanized division.

Juliusz Rómmel does his thing again. His troops basically only move every second turn. This would be acceptable. But for some odd reason they not only can't move, they also can't shell the enemy or blow bridges.

Our staff officers did some analysis on our enemy and came up with some things to learn from Lowlander: In this game he did make very good use of the Luftwaffe's level bomber. In the first few turns they did attack and flatten the Mlowa forts, destroying the biggest obstacle of the Heer's northern approach to Warsaw. This turn they attacked Warsaw, destroying two important rail bridges. This will hamper our supply network in the north, maybe slowing our advance.

Another thing is his use of artillery: every german unit stack in touch with our troops has an artillery unit in it. Because of his strong artillery we will lose several guns due to counter battery fire if we try to shell them. This is a very effective protection of his units, in particular if they have to enter open terrain. On the image below you will notice, that we only shelled one hex, the only one without german artillery.

Nordpolen: The Germans still feel too confident. Instead of taking care of their supply routes they opted to attack. They pushed two Polish units back. This could turn into a problem if the other corps of army group north would be nearby and new supply lines could be opened in the south. But luckily army group north is quite slow even though there is not much in front of them.

To counter I Corps drive south, Group Modlin used an available card to increase the defense value of 8th Div. for one turn. Furthermore we were able to push back Corps Modrig with two success full attacks. Lowlander may decides to help them with I Corps, relieving our southern Kessel forces.

Westpolen: Group Pomorze / Poznan continue to give ground to Guderian. If Guderian will not achieve a breakthrough soon, his forces will be too late to attack Warsaw.

Südpolen: The forces around Lodz cannot move, so they will defend. Further south we fall back slowly. The situation of our offensive in the north:

This turn not much happened. In the west and south the Germans slowly push our troops back. Our side takes most of the casualties there. The Luftwaffe is very active and besides some Flak units unopposed. The air attacks are followed by artillery shelling and infantry / tank attacks. If hit like that our units mostly lose between half and three quarter of their fighting power. If possible they will get some time behind the frontlines to regain readiness. It does look like the German Panzer forces are a bit frustrated by the lack of speed: there are also attacks without any preparations. 4300 men of a regiment of the 6th Inf Div / Group Cracaw defended against 8 regiments of Army Group South (24'400men): the Poles lost 700 men to 1600 Germans. This is most likely due to attacking a dug in unit and suffering overstacking penalties.

In the north the Kessel around Corps Modrig and I Corps of Army Group North's 3rd Army is closing almost unopposed. By the end of this day, both Corps are cut off from supply. We will continue with attacks where feasible: three sided attacks with heavy artillery support. But in the coming days the supply penalties will lower the German fighting spirit enough to start an all out attack.

Southern Poland: The Polish forces facing the slovak forces neutralize each other. Both sides exchange artillery duels with no effect. It is decided to risk an engineer unit and send it south, trying to cut off the Slovaks of supply or at least force them to give up their position.

A short summary of the day's events: our northern operation still goes on unopposed. We managed to push back several isolated German regiments into one hex. Next turns attack will see the end of those formations.

At this very moment Polish units are entering German ground. We are laying siege to Königsberg and Elbing, we freed Graudenz, Kulm and Osterode. The world witnessed the brutal regime of the Wehrmacht, it's now up to us to decide if Ostpreussen will have to pay for all those crimes.

Two Corps, 3rd army HQ and Division Lotzen are isolated. We estimate to kill or capture roughly 100'000 Germans in the next few days. This might be enough to find some kind of political agreement to end this war. If not we hope that our allies finally find the courage to attack in the west.

The losses are mounting on both sides. Germany already crossed the 10% line, suffering a production points loss in the French campaign.

Northern Poland:

This turn we successfully attack four isolated stacks causing high German losses. The single hex pocket got cleared. The 3rd army HQ will be attacked next turn. The German units are now several days without fresh supply, their reserve is used up and our attacks cause us close to no casualties. Untypical but understandable the enemy is surrendering en masse.

Cleared pocket at the end of turn:

West Poland: Army Groups Poznan and Pomorze will fall back faster this turn. German units crossing the Warta are threatening our retreat line.

Southern Poland: The defending units suffered quite hard, some more rounds and our lines will break. Our goal is to buy time for our northern offensive. We do hope that the axis will shift some forces north soon.

German losses went up to 16% and this is even before the elimination of the big pocket by the end of this turn. German losses were very low for the first few turns but went up during our northern offensive.

This turn all of the I Corps surrendered during our final assault. A total of 15 units lay down their arms, including the entire Pazerdivision Kempf, I Corps HQ, 217th, 11th& 61frst Inf Div an engineer unit and the corps artillery battery.

This concludes our northern offensive. Group Narev and Modlin will regroup and turn south. Some divisions will be railed to Warsaw to dig in for the final fight, some divisions will try to fall into the back of the remnants of army groups north third army.

By now the bulk of the Polish army is closing in to Warsaw. Even though German high command granted their offensive six additional days (2 turns) there is no way they will get into Warsaw soon enough. The German offensive failed at reaching their goals. By turn 11 they suffered 21% losses and are still 11VP missing. The Polish success ended the campaign early.

This will end my first aar ever. i would be interested to get some feedback.

I posted this also on the wargamer site. the picture size seems to be quite a bit bigger here.

a few comments on the game: this is my second game with Lowlander. Even though he had a better start this time i feel he plays the German far too cautios. i also wonder why he let me wreac havoc in the north. He made some rather big mistakes this time and i am by no means a good DC player.

Followed your AAR right form the start. There´s nothing wrong with it. Except for the early finish maybe. (Which isn´t your fault). I think the scenario can be quite unforgiving for the german side, if they don´t put high pressure on the defenders. For me its a hard nut to crack even against the AI .

very good AAR. I'm currently playing the case white DC2 AI scenario (Polish player) with the better equipment & 10 days variants and Soviet betray Germany checked. Not doing so well though this time. It appears the AI is rather good compared to ATG.....